The Sunda Trench was the location where the faked wreckage of Flight 815 was discovered. It is the second deepest trench in the Indian Ocean and is located several hundred kilometers off of the southern and western shores of Indonesia. It was first specifically mentioned in he alternate reality game Find 815 but was later mentioned in television episodes as well.

Contents

Episodes

In "The Brig", late in Season 3, Naomi Dorrit claimed an ocean trench off of Bali is where the wreckage of Flight 815 was discovered four miles deep, and, that people sent down robotic cameras to survey the wreck, locating all of the passengers bodies. In that same episode, Anthony Cooper stated essentially the same story, but did not mention the location of the discovered wreckage. Early in Season 4 in "Confirmed Dead", an on-the-air television newscaster stated that a salvage vehicle, the Christiane I, after searching for sunken trading ships for two months, discovered the aircraft wreckage in the Sunda Trench. This trench was subsequently also mentioned in the Season 4 DVD extra The Oceanic Six: A Conspiracy of Lies.

Geography

The Sunda Trench

The Sunda Islands

The trench is a product of two major tectonic plates meeting, with the oceanic plate driving under the plate supporting the mainland. The Sunda Trench is approximately 3,200 kilometers long [1] and over 7.7 kilometers (4.8 miles) deep. Maximum depth measurements vary for the Sunda Trench at 7.5 to 8.0 kilometers, making it the 13th-15th deepest ocean trench in the world. It is also commonly referred to as the Java Trench. The trench is named after the Sunda Islands, which form part of Indonesia. The Greater Sunda Islands bordering the trench are Sumatra and Java. Bali is the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands that border the trench. Presently, a sole location called "Sunda" does not exist. Centuries ago, Sunda was considered the region of Western Java.

Extreme seismic activity in the western end of the Sunda Trench caused the December 2004 tsunami [2] that devasted many northern Indian Ocean coastlines and low-lying islands. The alleged crash location of Flight 815, south of Bali, is 2,500 kilometers from the tsunami epicenter, and was unaffected by any tidal impact [3].

Flight 815

Note: information garnered from Find 815 is subject to semi-canon and non-canon policies described at Canon.

Quoted from http://www.findinfoout.com/sundatrench within Sam's browser:

“

The Sunda Trench is an oceanic trench
located the Indian Ocean off the island of
Sumatra. Numerous aircraft and vessels
have gone missing in the region of the
trench over the year, giving it a somewhat
mysterious reputation akin to the
Bermuda Triangle's.

The Sunda Trench is certainly situated in
one of the most geologically violent spots in
the world: it is near the collision point for
several tectonic plates, there are large
numbers of active volcanoes in the area
and earthquakes are frequent. Some of the
devastating natural disasters that have
occurred in the Sunda Trench region
include:

-The 1815 volcanic eruption of Tombora on
Sumbawa Island, thought to be the most
massive in recorded history.

The following text was originally seen on the site in Sam's browser, but it has since been omitted.

“

-The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that
caused the Boxing Day tsunami, killing over
225,000 people.

”

Although the information regarding the 2004 tsunami was removed from the browser on Sam's laptop, the star on the map and date of the tsunami (December 26, 2004) still remained for a while, accompanied by a yellow star representing the earthquake and tsunami which occurred on March 28, 2005.

The star and legend on the map were later removed altogether, leaving no trace that the tsunami was ever mentioned or included on the web page.

1944 -- Several American bombing planes go missing in region on routine mission, despite no reports of storms or enemy activity

1948 -- Dutch merchant ship SS Ourang Medan was found adrift off Indonesia with all of its crew dead. The ship subsequently caught on fire and sank.

1951 -- US submarine disappears during patrol of waters

1955 -- British plane en route to Thailand disappears with 7 crew and 13 passengers -- one week later a plane sent out on a rescue mission also vanishes

1957 -- US seaplane lost with 10 crewmen

1964 -- American aircraft carrying 55 military personnel to South Vietnam vanishes

1966 -- British navy boat on patrol during Indonesian confrontation vanishes -- initially this loss was thought to be due to Indonesian military, but later release of classified documents from the Indonesian government indicated this was not the case

1973 -- French sailor disappears during round the world yacht expedition

1975 -- privately-owned plane carrying Minister in Indonesian government vanishes with 6 people on board

2003 -- ship High Aim 6 left Taiwan on October 31, 2002 - found floating in Australian waters without its crew on on January 8, 2003.

In addition to these, there have been reports of a high incidence of unexplained electronics failure in the area. Compasses have also been known to behave erratically.

”

Notes

The High Aim 6 was a real ship whose crew disappeared somewhere between Taiwan and Australia.

There was no Princess Mary in the British Navy in 1815.

No British Navy boat went missing in 1966 near Indonesia.

Stories have been told of the S.S. Ourang Medan, but the existance of the ship and truth of the stories has never been established. No proof has ever been found to show that the ship existed.

No US submarine went missing in 1951.

No Dutch explorer named Conrad Van Eyck is known to have existed.

Literary References

In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver is first shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput. An illustration found in early editions of the book show that Lilliput is southwest of the Sunda Straits.